Out of Work? Read a Recession Blog. Or, Better Yet, Write One.

In happier times, the Above the Law blog, which bills itself as a “legal tabloid,” riffed about Jerry Springer speaking at Northwestern University Law School’s commencement and Clarence Thomas’s love of Egg McMuffins. These days, it is a hot spot for rumors and real-time reports on big-firm layoffs — and features, such as an out-of-work lawyer’s “Notes From the Breadline.”

We are in the worst economic downturn of the Internet age, and bloggers are making the most of it. Because of the diversity of voices, their ability to cover niche subjects and the infinite capacity of the Web for words, blogs have been able to take on the recession from every conceivable angle — straight-up reporting, economic analysis, advice for the unemployed and more than a few servings of paranoia.

The Great Depression of the 1930s was documented with black-and-white photographs of migrant workers and film reels of bread lines. In this economic crisis, the iconic media coverage could be the furious postings occurring in the blogosphere.

There are blogs starting up that aim to be one-stop sites for information — like recessionwire.com, founded by two downsized Condé Nast Portfolio editors. Its subjects range from a just-laid-off checklist — practical advice on what to do in the first hours, days and weeks after losing a job — to getting by with subsistence gardening.

Blogging economists are offering the sort of analysis once available only in specialized publications or graduate school seminars. Baselinescenario.com, whose writers include a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is a former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund, drills down on issues like the A.I.G. bailout. Greg Mankiw, an economics professor at Harvard, writes a conservative blog heavy on theory. (A recent entry: “Team Obama on the Unit Root Hypothesis.”)

Thrifty-living blogs have been around for awhile, but the recession is bringing in new readers and making the advice at least seem a little more mainstream. With the Dow below 7,000 right now, there may be a growing audience for WiseBread’s “Cornmeal: Fresh Ideas for a Frugal Family Staple” and its tips on removing car dents with a cigarette lighter, aluminum foil and an air duster.

There are a growing number of blogs created to be online communities for the recession’s victims. The 405 Club — named for New York’s maximum unemployment benefit of $405 a week — calls itself a place for the jobless to share “tips and tricks to navigate this tough environment.” (One hot tip: make your own cheap breakfast burritos in bulk.)

Pink Slips Are the New Black, a blog “for unemployed people by unemployed people,” is edgier. “I can’t even afford my COBRA payments,” a recent post on government bailouts wailed, “and these morons are getting boatloads of taxpayer money.”

The recession is creating new blogger personalities. Clara Cannucciari, a 93-year-old great-grandmother who quit high school and went to work in a Twinkie factory in 1935, has become a YouTube star with videos on how to prepare food that was popular during the Depression — like the “Poorman’s meal,” a low-cost mix of potatoes, onions and hot dogs. She blogs at greatdepressioncooking.com.

And there are plenty of first-person accounts of unemployment, from “Laid Off in NYC: 23, female and officially on unemployment” to Rachel, the self-described “San Francisco Girl” who writes the entertaining Tales From the Recently Laid Off.

There’s even recession humor. Check out The Brokers With Hands on Their Faces blog, or the 405 Club’s online store, which features coffee mugs reading “Starbucks got too expensive,” and T-shirts that brand the wearer a “friend without benefits.”

The blogosphere makes it possible to have a sprawling national conversation about the hard times — often among people who would never find each other offline. Jim Rawles, who calls himself a guns-and-groceries survivalist, says traffic to his survivalblog.com has tripled in the last 14 months.

Mr. Rawles doesn’t concern himself with résumé-writing tips. He’s planning for “the golden horde,” the flood of people he believes will flee the cities if there is a full-scale socioeconomic collapse. Survivalblog has all kinds of advice for getting by, and it has ads touting products like body armor and canned butter.

But Mr. Rawles insists that surviving the crisis really boils down to having two essentials: a personal water filtration system and a three-year food supply.

A version of this editorial appears in print on , on page A30 of the New York edition with the headline: Out of Work? Read a Recession Blog. Or, Better Yet, Write One. Today's Paper|Subscribe